Choices and the Ways to Die
by Emrys1
Summary: Their trap backfires. Dean angst.


She is fine

**Title: Choices and the Ways to Die**

**Author: Emrys**

**Series: Not really a series per se, but you might need to read my other fic, "More" to understand parts of this.**

**Rating: PG-13**

**Warnings/Spoilers: "Asylum" and "Shadow." WARNINGS for language, as usual!**

**Genre: Heavy duty Dean angst.**

**Disclaimer: Anything having to do with ****Supernatural**** has nothing to do with me (except for this plot)! I'm not getting any money from it. Oh, and I borrowed a line from the Eagle's song, "Witchy Woman," but that's not mine either! Excerpts from the transcripts of "Asylum" and "Shadow" are most certainly NOT mine!**

**A/N: Again, you might need to read my other fic, "More" to understand parts of this. Here's the URL: ****emrys777./2006/07/23**

**Summary: Their trap backfires. Dean angst.**

Choices and the Ways to Die

She is absolutely and succinctly fine. So fine that Dean feels the attraction for her before she even steps completely into the smoky, front room of the bar. He eyes her appreciatively and takes a long, slow sip of his beer. She's wearing a fitted, red dress that's the exact same color as her lipstick and a pair of red high-heeled shoes that would break the ankles of any other woman. He wants to whistle, feels the unaccountable urge to do so, but manages to restrain himself.

She steps into the dim light, and she's perfect, and he wants her right fucking _now_, but he turns away from her and takes another swallow of his beer instead. He's aware that the air in the bar is thickening and that the music is blasting from the jukebox like a warning.

_Ooh, ooh, Witchy Woman. She's got the moon in her eyes._

Dean wants to laugh at the twisted relevance of the song, but he still keeps his cool as Don Henley continues to croon.

She notices him almost immediately which is way too fast for Dean's comfort. He briefly considers what it is that she must see in him, what it is amongst the myriad of his qualities that draws her so quickly to him. Because there is no doubt, that despite all of the other men in the room, this woman is drawn to him and only to him.

He had known that this would be the way of it. Had told Sam that it would be so. Had always had his suspicions.

But he doesn't really understand _why_.

He sees her eyes widen slightly, and then all questioning thoughts dissipate as she sidles up to him. She looks even more beautiful up this close, and he hadn't thought that was possible. It's a deadly beauty, to be sure, and he makes certain to keep that fact as near to the forefront of his mind as possible.

But even that important awareness is dispelled as a haze of something strong and undeniable descends upon him. He easily recognizes the feeling as powerful desire, the desire for release. And even though the type of release that he seeks is suddenly unclear to him, he is completely certain that she can grant it.

Easily, happily, _enjoyably_.

She touches his hand with terribly soft fingertips, and he hears an echo of a voice and so begins to understand the nature of the escape she is offering.

_That's the difference between you and me. I have a mind of my own. I'm not __pathetic__ like you._

"Buy me a drink?" she asks him, and her voice is everything he would expect. Tainted and innocent and full of the otherworldly danger that is the nature of her beauty.

He nods and orders her a glass of white pinot, because she strikes him as that sort of woman. Sweet and dizzying all mixed together in a mystical strangeness.

His voice is steady and sure as he speaks to the bartender. She smiles at the tawny drink that is set before her and takes a dainty sip.

Dean's throat goes dry, and he takes a calm swallow of his own drink.

"I knew you were coming here, Hunter. I've felt you walking this earth for some time," she says and invades him far enough to playfully finger the amulet around his neck. She's touching and twisting the leather cord, and Dean hears that unbearable voice again as another wave of haziness descends.

_But things will never be the way they were before. I don't want them to be._

And she's fucking _caressing_ the amulet, and Dean knows that this is trouble. That the whole reason he's here is because the amulet is supposed to protect him from her as it had from the strigoica. But as the memory of his brother's words—those words that described his brother's hatred of him, those words that described his brother's desperate need for escape from him—as the memory of _those_ words rings and echoes through his head, Dean realizes that he really, honestly, seriously doesn't care that the succubus standing next to him in this wasteland of a bar is going to kill him.

888

He doesn't even know how they ended up in this motel room. Doesn't know if he drove, or if she drove, or if Sammy followed them both.

And he still can't bring himself to care.

She's dancing slowly with him now, sweet, sweet Death. It's just a small tumble of her hips, a subtle sway of her shoulders, but the dance is slowly driving him insane with need.

"It won't hurt," she whispers, almost reverently, like she is offering him something hallowed and true. "It won't hurt, and I'll ease your pain and give you pleasure in return."

He can't speak, because it's the first time anyone, human or not, has ever recognized his pain. He's been fine with that, because overall, the pain has been something he can deal with, something that bravado and denial can overcome. But her acknowledgement of it makes it more real and serious, somehow.

She touches him again with one perfectly polished fingernail, a slow, drawn out grazing of his cheek. He idly notices that the polish is the same color as the dress, shoes and lipstick, and that the glancing touch almost hurts, but not quite. Instead, as she touches him, his real pain flares and suddenly becomes something that bravado can't hold back. It's as if she has torn down the walls that have held back the flood of his life's hurt, and now he's feeling it all in its entirety and has no protection from it.

He feels the flutter of his soul struggle under the weight of that lifetime of anguish. That part of him that thinks of Sammy is still there, it is still serving its purpose. But then a wall of mist slams into him, and even though he can still hear and feel Sammy, he doesn't want to anymore.

_When this is over, you're gonna have to let me go my own way._

'_Cause I'm getting pretty tired of taking your orders._

_I'd sleep a month. Go back to school. Be a real person again._

'_Cause you always do what he says without question? Are you that desperate for his approval?_

"Yes," Dean whispers as she kisses the hollow at the base of his throat. He thinks back again to what his brother said in the rat hole that is their combined past, and knows that he will go willingly now. He isn't even capable of finding it odd that he's thinking of his little brother at this moment when a lethal and exquisite woman is pressed against him and sucking desperately on his lower lip. But those words, those cutting words that Sammy spoke in a tone so gentle that it caused the slow slide of emotions that have led Dean to this place, those words are now and always with him, always too close. Much closer, even than this woman who is making a serious attempt to defy conventional physics and occupy his body's space at the same time that he is.

He feels a sharp thrum of pleasure, and thinks that it is so much better to do it this way than to continue dying slowly from pain that is agonizing and pure suffering.

She forces his head down to her lips and kisses him hard. The amulet is a burning piece of metal that is scorching the skin on his chest, but he doesn't even notice its warning plea as mind-blowing need courses through the rest of him. She deepens the kiss, and his legs buckle.

He's crumpled on the floor kissing her with single-minded focus, weakening but uncaring of anything but her mouth and body.

Two shots ring out and then two more. She's suddenly gone, and the rest of him is drifting towards the floor.

_Four shots_, he thinks. Four shots. The same number that Sammy fired at him in Ellicott's asylum. Four shots. Four. The unluckiest of numbers.

Because now, she's gone, and so is the pleasure, and all that is left is the pain that he doesn't know how to live with anymore.

888

"What the _hell_ were you thinking?! You weren't supposed to go _anywhere _with her! You just left me waiting alone in that back alley! What the _fuck_, Dean?"

Sammy's pacing and not really looking for answers, which is fortunate since Dean can't give him any. He's too busy coming back into his consciousness and wishing that he could go back to where he was.

"I'm getting pretty sick of saving you from beautiful women, Dean," Sam says, angrily. He mutters for a while longer but then abruptly stops his pacing and griping when he sees Dean's eyes are open to slits.

"Dean? Are you awake?"

Dean's only able to groan, but he figures it's a good start. He's feeling weird and mixed-up, almost as if he's going to cry, scream and laugh all at the same time. He tries to push all of the emotion where it belongs, far, far back and away from his surfaces. But as he shoves and beats back the multitude of feeling, he is frightened to discover that there's no place for it all to go.

"Sammy?" he queries, and his voice is choked with grief, pain, and overwhelming sadness.

"Right here, Dean. I'm right here," Sam says, gently. He sits on the end of the bed that Dean is lying on, and Dean can see the surprise in his little brother's eyes when he desperately reaches out to clasp the younger man's hand.

"Sam? What happened?" Dean asks. He feels raw and out of control, and he can't seem to stop grasping Sam's hand.

"She took you. Again, Dean! This happened again."

"Huh. Not part of the plan, was it?" he tries to sound cavalier, but fails miserably.

"No, Dean. It wasn't. I thought you said that the amulet would protect you from her. Look at you! She almost killed you, man! As far as I can tell, it had no effect on that bitch."

Dean's confused. He's confused on so many levels that he can't even figure out how to begin unraveling his thoughts. Why the fuck _hadn't_ the amulet worked? It should have worked. And how could a little sexual tension brought on by a succubus wreak havoc on the best part of him, the part that withstood the strigoica's painful attentions, the part of him that never quit?

He's struggling with the dizzying sensations of uncontrolled emotions and unanswerable questions, when a single thought arises. He's able to focus on it, to stand in the middle of his mind where all the chaos is swirling around him and yet he is still and quiet and able to concentrate on one, simple thought.

Hadn't he read somewhere, a long time ago, when he was an adolescent and a boy and things like succubi held him in dark curiosity, hadn't he read that nothing protected the one who gives a life freely?

Had he done that? Had he given his life? Given up his life to her?

He considers how much he is feeling now and remembers things that were once said to him by his little brother. Stinging, aching, hurting things that he had never wanted to hear and doesn't want to remember now.

The pain spikes within him, and he suddenly suspects that, yes, he probably had given up his life to her.

It's a problem, and now that he knows it exists, he'll figure it out. But he's not going to tell Sammy about it, because that would make the confusion of this situation much too untenable for his fracturing endurance.

"Huh," he says, and it's a gasped breath of air. "Guess it doesn't work on succubi. We should ask Dad about it the next time we see him."

Sam looks like he's about to argue, but doesn't. He sits there and studies Dean carefully. Dean wants to squirm under the knowing scrutiny, but he doesn't have the strength.

"Guess we should," Sam finally says, and takes a firmer hold on Dean's hand. "You know, you're really starting to push it with the whole getting-killed-by-gorgeous-weird-things, and I don't know how many more times I'm going to want to try to save your ass. It's starting to piss me off and make me tired."

Dean supposes that Sam's feeble attempt at lightening the mood has something to do with the fact that his smart-mouthed, son-of-a-bitch, tough-as-nails, older brother is shaking like a leaf and holding hands with him.

"Bitch," he mutters, and feels something close to normal returning. The pain is still unbearable, but Sammy's giving him the chance to get a handle on it and find all of those hidden places where he normally tucks the hurt away.

"Jerk," Sam mutters, and it's almost automatic.

Dean takes as much comfort as he can from the insult and feels the heavy weight of sleep seeping into him. He hopes that when he wakes up, he'll be able to put himself back together.

"You going to be okay, Dean?" Sam asks, quietly.

"I'm fine, Sammy," Dean mutters and then falls asleep with his brother's hand in his.


End file.
